Sunday, April 17, 2016

It's the Proms!

A concert in a car park, pufferfish with doughnuts and a dancing Katie Derham: here's my Proms preview for the new-look Independent. 

It's a very safe season, on balance, but there are some great experiments with venues, five women conductors (in two months of daily concerts...I haven't worked out the percentage, but it's small) and some real gems among the performances. The selection of top ten Proms is my personal one, but there are at least ten others I could have included equally happily. 

I wouldn't say no to a waltz around the arena, but I do think it would be more of a thrill if some conceptual feathers could be ruffled now and then... Still, we all think we know what we want of the Proms - but we aren't the ones who have to deal with the realities of filling that hall.